Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Majid Qaiser, a Roanoke College alumnus, plays dodgeball at Roanoke College between 12 and 4 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Majid Qaiser (foreground) plays a game of midnight dodgeball with Anthony Jackson (right) and Jake Giardina at Roanoke College.

Harvey Porter, a junior at Roanoke College, sits after being tagged "out" in a game of dodgeball.

In the wee morning hours last Saturday, about 60 young people gathered inside a sweaty gym at Roanoke College and pelted one another with playground balls. It was dodgeball night.

There were about 15 players to a side and a half-dozen colorful balls. But gym class rules did not apply. All shots were fair, and a laser to the face got only an "oooh!" from the crowd.

(The club recently traded its rubber kickballs for softer, foamy balls. "I got pegged in the face earlier, and I'm fine," said Eden Blume, a Roanoke College freshman, during a game break.)

Friday night has been this way since the dodgeball club first met five years ago. The game starts at midnight and can go until as late as 3 a.m. Players come from nearby colleges, and a few alumni, local folks and high school kids join in. It's a chance to unwind from the week, the dodgeball crew says, and an alternative to a keg party. Think of it as dodgebeer.

"I don't drink. I don't smoke," said Harvey Porter, an organizer and college junior. But, he added, "It's Friday. It's 12. I want to have fun."

Midnight dodgeball fits in with what colleges call "late-night programming," a campus trend over the past 10 years, said Mark Petersen, Roanoke College's head of student activities.

He pointed to RC After Dark, another Friday night meet-up, that offers movies and music. Some students may sniff that a school-sponsored social scene is uncool, Petersen said, but the festivities usually bring in about 200 people.

Liberty University, a campus that forbids alcohol and tobacco use, also fills the usual party hours with late-night programming, including after-hours ice skating.

"Late night activities are generally a huge hit," Chris Misiano, director of student activities for the Lynchburg school, wrote in an e-mail.

But why dodgeball and why at midnight?

"Everybody loves dodgeball," Porter explained. And that includes his father, who joined a game during a parents' weekend.

"Midnight is like the one time everyone's free."

Last Saturday morning, loud rap music pumped from Roanoke College's alumni gym. The balls were lined up along the middle of the old gym's yellow wood floor. And play began.

A few players looked rusty from a week off the dodgeball court. Throws sailed high. Throws sailed wide. The crowd in the bleachers was regularly bombarded.

Dodgeball is a primitive game at its heart. If you're hit, you're out. If you catch a throw, the thrower is out. The skills are basic, too.

"You got to be able to dodge, first. You got to be able to catch," explained Aaron Riggleman, a college senior and four-year player, who was drawn to dodgeball as a late-night alternative.

"But the most important thing is you've got to be able to throw."

And no one seemed to unleash the ball with the same fury as Wray Reid, a dodgeball club founder with the muscles of the Minotaur. At one point, he threw one of the last remaining rubber balls with such force that it deflated on impact.

Reid, who graduated from Roanoke last year but returns for midnight games, recalled the group's birth in the fall of 2003. On a late night whim, he and some buddies drove to Wal-Mart for dodgeball supplies.

New players arrived each week. When the movie "Dodgeball" came out the next year, the club suspected that news of their midnight sessions had reached Hollywood.

With five years of training, Reid has refined his specialty move, the "freezing rain." He spins like a shot-putt thrower before his release, a sort of dodgeball do-si-do that gives him three times more power, he said.

"When I get out there to throw the ball it's like I only think of one thing," he said, drenched in sweat after several games. "They're in my way. They're in the court. If I don't get them first, they're going to get me."

Connecting with a shot, especially one that pastes the opponent hard, is a highlight. One player described the feeling as "unexplainable."

But there's one more dodgeball rule here: If the player who knocked you out gets nailed, you're back in. And so, it is possible for a game of dodgeball to last forever.